230 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



no harm, he began again. His four or five rising notes, 

 and the long-drawn idle-sounding note with which they 

 conclude, suited so well with the sunshine, they soothed 

 her still further. She sighed again, and let herself sit 

 loosely on the oak-trunk, like the yellow-hammer. He 

 had his back humped, and all his body rested comfortably. 

 So did she ; she permitted her back to bow, her shoulders 

 to stoop, her limbs to relax, and idle nature to have her 

 own way. After a while she sighed again. 

 . ' She was bathing in the beauty of the morning — floating 

 upheld on the dewy petals. A swimmer lies on the warm 

 summer water, the softest of couches, extended at full 

 length, the body so gently held that it undulates slightly 

 with the faint swell. So soft is the couch it softens the 

 frame, which becomes supple, flexible, like the water itself. 



' Felise was lying on the flowers and grass, extended 

 under the sun, steeped in their sweetness. She visibly 

 sat on the oak-trunk — invisibly her nature was reclining, 

 as the swimmer on the sun- warmed sea. Her frame 

 drooped as the soul, which bears it up, flowed outwards, 

 feeling to grass, and flower, and leaf, as the swimmer 

 spreads the arms abroad, and the fingers feel the water. 

 She sighed with deep content, dissolving in the luxurious 

 bath of beauty. 



' Her strong heart beating, the pulses throbbing, her 

 bosom rising and regularly sinking with the rich waves of 

 life ; her supple limbs and roundness filled with the plenty 

 of ripe youth ; her white, soft, roseate skin, the surface 

 where the sun touched her hand glistening with the dew 

 of the pore ; the bloom upon her — that glow of the morn 

 of life — the hair more lovely than the sunlight ; the grace 

 unwritten of perfect form — these produced within her a 

 sense of existence — a consciousness of being, to which she 

 was abandoned ; and her lips parted to sigh. The sigh 

 was the expression of feeling herself to be. 



'To be ! To live ! To have an intense enjoyment in 

 every inspiration of breath ; in every beat of the pulse ; 

 in every movement of the limbs ; in every sense ! 



